


I Wish My Heart Remembered You

by anarchycox



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Falling In Love Again, Feels, Hurt/Comfort, Just all the feels, Lost Memory, M/M, Night Terrors, Recovery, canon adjacent, harry's injuries were severe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-22 12:15:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15581793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anarchycox/pseuds/anarchycox
Summary: A companion one shot to It's the Quiet Ones You Have to Watch Out For. The Statesman didn't have magic alpha gel, so Harry's recovery has been long, slow, and hard. Many physical problems and lingering, likely not improving amnesia. Mostly importantly he barely remembers his decades long relationship with Merlin, it is only in his nightmares that he calls for the man, begs Merlin to save him. Now that they are together and home again, can they rebuild what they had, or did it die in the church in Kentucky?Can be read as a stand alone, though will be richer for reading Quiet Ones





	I Wish My Heart Remembered You

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [It's the Quiet Ones You Have to Watch Out For](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13980957) by [anarchycox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anarchycox/pseuds/anarchycox). 



> so the hurting Harry Hart was an important part of the last third of Quiet Ones and I couldn't leave him hurting and it didn't fit into the main story. So enjoy this sad and soft companion piece.

Merlin woke up and ran to the room next to his. Harry was screaming, thrashing in the bed, sheets soaked with sweat. "Merlin, I'm trapped. Help me Merlin!" Harry was sobbing. He was looking for a weapon. "Gavin!" he would shout himself hoarse soon. Merlin approached the bed and started singing. He couldn't touch Harry yet. He sang The Stones, Harry had always had a thing for them. Merlin never could quite see the appeal of them, though he enjoyed Exile on Main Street well enough. "Gavin, why won't you save me?" Harry sobbed as he started to calm down.

"I'm trying my love," Merlin replied and kept singing. He reached out and touched Harry, wondered if this was a night where he would wake up or just go back to a restful sleep. It seemed though that it was the latter. Merlin had had three hours sleep, he was fine. He took the quilt and sheet off the bed and balled them into the corner. He went to the ensuite and grabbed a large towel and lay it down on the bed over the worst of the sweat soaked sheets and nudged Harry onto it. He pulled a fresh blanket from the wardrobe and covered him up. He then sat in the chair in the corner and kept a watchful eye on Harry. He dozed a little but every time Harry started to grow restless he would start singing again and Harry never fully slid into another night terror. Months of this and Merlin was exhausted but he didn't care. Harry slept better when he sang, so he would sing.

Merlin's glasses beeped and he tapped the side.

"I can pipe in music, monitor his levels," New Merlin offered. "I'm fresh of a solid 6.5 hours sleep. And 15 years younger than you. Time hasn't completely ravaged me yet."

Merlin let out a huff. "Ravaged am I?"

"Just around the edges," New Merlin replied. "You need more sleep."

"I slept enough when he was dead."

"No you didn't, you didn't sleep without him, and now you don't sleep with him. Arthur, sir, you need rest."

"I know," Merlin agreed. "Tomorrow night."

"Sir, if I may be bold -"

"When aren't you?"

"Sir, makes our lives easier when you don't lie to me."

Merlin gave a nod. "In his sleep, he remembers me. He needs me to protect him. He needs me. And I can pretend. We are who we were."

"Not sure that is healthy."

"No, I don't suppose it isn't." Harry grew restless again and Merlin sang. 

"You have a nice voice, Arthur, you should let him hear it when he is awake."

Merlin didn't answer, busy singing to soothe Harry.

When Harry woke at 6, there was the towel under him, the clean blanket above, and the room was empty.

**************************************

"You are doing brilliant, Harry, swear down," Eggsy said.

"I took a walk in the woods," Harry replied. "With a cane. Like an old man."

"Like a man who's been through a lot, and getting better every day," Eggsy countered. "Look at you, a month ago you'd be winded and need a two hour nap. You're barely pale."

"I'm British, I'm always pale," Harry said. Eggsy laughed and Harry sighed a little, it hadn't been that funny but he was still being treated as fragile. It was frustrating, especially because he still was so fragile. The only person who didn't have that odd weight about them was New Merlin. But he had no forgotten history with the man so that made sense. "Eggsy," he began and quieted. They were headed back to the estate and he looked up and thought maybe he saw Merlin in a window, but at this distance it could have been nothing. "Eggsy, I think I remember a few more things."

"That's aces, Harry," Eggsy said eagerly. "Wot are they?"

"My mother, maybe. It is a woman, hair up, a cameo around her neck." Harry couldn't quite hold the picture of her in his head, but he could hear her voice. "I want to go to my house."

"Harry," Eggsy was hesitant. Harry's last visit to the townhouse had not gone well. 

"It is my home and you can either go with me, or I will find a way to go alone." For a moment his face looked like what Eggsy remembered, what he missed.

"What about Arthur?" Eggsy asked. "Shouldn't he go with you?"

Harry looked up at that window again. "No," he said softly. "Not him."

Eggsy nodded and they took one of the cars to Harry's house and went in. Harry was tense. He hated the place, all these memories that weren't his anymore. They belonged to a man that everyone wanted back, and from what Harry had gleaned he wasn't sure he wanted to go back to being that man. He went to the loo and opened the door. He just stared at the dog and the butterflies. "Uni. I wanted to study butterflies in uni."

"Yes, Harry," Eggsy said. "Only you went to the army. We could move a couple to your room at the estate?"

"No, I've rather had enough with death, I think," Harry shook his head. "They feel wrong." He walked through the whole house and eventually had Eggsy pull down the steps to the attic and there he found what he was looking for. "Here," he said. "Bring these boxes down?"

"Sure, Harry," Eggsy agreed and carried the two boxes down. Each photo album was well labeled and Harry skimmed his fingers over them and opened 1970.

"It was my grandmother," Harry said looking at a photo. "Cigarettes and rose water. That is what she smelled like."

"That's a very granny sort of smell," Eggsy said. "I'll make some tea."

Harry flipped through old albums and laughed at himself as a boy. Fragments of memory would float on by. Some lingered, most didn't. But a warmth filled him, in a way it hadn't in a long time. He moved to newer slimmer albums. Harry was an adult. Looking rather dashing he thought.

He turned a page and there was Merlin. It looked over a decade old and they were smiling and Harry's arm was casually tossed over Merlin's shoulder. Merlin looked so happy. Harry hadn't seem him look happy since they were reunited. Eggsy came back with the tea and when he took the cup, his hand shook and it spilled over the photo.

"Protected by the plastic, not ruined a whit," Eggsy reassured in that sing song voice that was so often used around him.

When someone used that voice, Harry remembered 30 ways to kill a man before it slid out of his grasp and left him unbearably tired. He picked up a couple of the albums to bring with him. "Let us go back to the estate."

"Of course," Eggsy said and quickly cleaned up the tea. He was very good not to mention that Harry drifted off on the drive.

*********************************************

It was one of the nights that the terrors woke Harry up. "Gavin," he said in the dark. It was a relief when a cool flannel washed away his tears and sweat and he went to a chair long enough for the bedding to be changed. He lay back down and Merlin went to the chair. "You can go back to your room," he offered. Even in the dark he knew that he said the wrong thing, that it caused Merlin pain to be told he could go away.

"Once you are asleep," Merlin answered. He began to read out loud and it bothered Harry.

"You don't read when I can sleep, you sing," Harry said. Merlin went very still. "Don't you?"

"Aye, you always said I had a tolerable singing voice, better than yours at least," Merlin said. "What would you like to hear?"

"What's your favourite?" He wondered why the man looked so confused. "I'm sorry," Harry said. "I should remember shouldn't I?"

"You never used to ask," Merlin said. "I always just sang you your favourites."

"I was a bit of a jackass wasn't I?" Harry asked.

"You picked that up from the Americans," Merlin said, "but you were upon occasion an arse."

"And yet you loved me," Harry said. 

"I did," Merlin said.

"Eye roll of supreme exasperation," Harry yawned.

"Yes, you called it that," Merlin said. "Close your eyes, Harry.  _Almost heaven, West Virginia_ ," Merlin began and Harry closed his eyes and listened. It wasn't a song he remembered at all, but he didn't know if that was because he honestly didn't know it, or it was forgotten like most things. He fell asleep with the sound of Merlin in his ear and knew he had fallen asleep like that a hundred times before. When he woke up briefly, he saw that Merlin was still in that chair, asleep at a horrid angle and snoring. He slid out of bed to cover him up with sheet and went back to sleep. In the morning, the sheet was folded on the chair and he was alone again.

********************************************

When he shot the eighth bullet, Kentucky flashed through his memory, the whole of it blinked into existence and then was swept away and he began to sob. "I don't want to remember," he said. He felt Percival hold his hand and squeezed tight. He knew it was all the man could offer and he was pretty sure more than he deserved and in a few moments, Eggsy was hugging him tight. So tightly he could barely breath. It calmed him, focused him into the moment. "I can't pick up a gun again," Harry whispered.

"Who said you had to?" Eggsy asked.

Harry didn't answer that, he couldn't. He couldn't explain how his therapy went better when he was stripping and reassembling guns instead of playing with stress balls. How the smell of the armory was comforting and off putting. How he thought maybe if he learned these skills again, he'd be whole again. But he was starting to believe not remembering was a mercy. That it was all too much weight to carry.

But if he didn't do this, maybe Merlin and Eggsy would stop caring, when he didn't become whole again, they wouldn't want him.

He just let Eggsy hold him and eventually the tears stopped and he was composed, mostly, almost, by the time Merlin arrived.

"I think we are done in here, aren't we?" Merlin asked quietly.

Harry nodded.

He was done with the armory. It hurt and didn't hurt at the same time. 

"Perhaps I'll take up baking, that could be good for my hands. I remember the smell of baking. It makes you happy," Harry said. "Lucille." He thought about Percival's suggestion of a date. To call it such seemed wrong. Seemed too much. "You could show me how to bake?" he asked Merlin. He ignored the way Eggsy seemed to light up beside him.

Merlin just nodded, "I'll show you whatever you want, Harry."

"You're dick included?" Harry said without thinking about it. He blinked. "I have no idea where that came from. My apologies, Gavin."

"You always joked like that when we were alone," Merlin said. He reached out but let his hand fall. "You were always so crass in private. Gentleman in the streets -"

"Dock worker in the sheets," Harry finished.

"Aye," Merlin agreed.

"Harry, you remember something!" Eggsy gave him an extra hug.

"It happens."

Merlin gave him a look. "It does, doesn't it?"

Harry froze a little. "Baking?" he asked to change the topic a bit.

"I'm happy to teach you. You always watched, never helped."

"I want to help now."

That night they were at Merlin's flat and Merlin showed him how to roll out cookie dough and helped him press the cookie cutters into the dough. Merlin was so careful not to touch Harry too much, because even a little made him want more. Made him want everything. "These are your second favourite," Merlin said.

"We'll make your favourite next," Harry said. "I think I know this?"

"Do you?" Merlin was curious.

"Shortbread." Harry was quiet. "No...wait...you only like shortbread at Christmas."

Merlin nodded. "I only like shortbread at Christmas. Otherwise, these lemon crumbly ones, that you despise. Too tart, too messy."

"Getting shot in the head changed my tastes some. Maybe I'll like them now," Harry offered. 

Merlin wanted to weep when Harry tried one, and hated it but tried to pretend he didn't. It was a Harry face he well remembered. He gave the man a glass of milk to wash the taste away. "We should return to the estate soon."

"We could stay here?" Harry asked. "There are a couple beds right? Why go that distance when everything we could need is here. I could borrow some clothes."

"No need," Merlin replied. "I still have a few of your things here."

"I was gone a long time," Harry said.

"You were," Merlin shrugged, "I couldn't move on. There is no moving on from Harry Hart."

"I don't think I was the nicest man."

"No you were often dreadful," Merlin said, "but that doesn't mean that you weren't everything to me."

"I won't be him again," Harry said. "Even if it all came back tonight. I wouldn't be him again."

"Wouldn't, not couldn't?"

Harry felt helpless. "I don't...you love a ghost."

"I loved a man. So very much. All the great, and all the bad." Merlin came closer. "I could love you, Harry, if you let me."

Harry reached out and touched Merlin's cheek. "You've been shaving less."

"You remember it against your thighs," Merlin said.

"I do." Harry touched the scruff. "It is a very good look on you. You are incredibly handsome, Gavin."

Merlin leaned into the touch, wished it would stay forever but Harry was pulling away. "You are astonishingly beautiful."

"I am a mess."

"That is what I always found beautiful about you."

"We could share a bed tonight," Harry said. 

"We could," Merlin agreed.

"Because you look like shit," Harry said and Merlin laughed. He couldn't stop laughing and soon found himself crying, sobbing. Harry pulled him into a hug. "It's okay," Harry said and rubbed his back. He realized just how much Merlin had been carrying, and wondered how close he had been to bowing under the weight of it. "I am here. Whoever I am." He tightened his grip. "You changed something."

"Shaving less means less aftershave," Merlin said.

Harry nodded and kept rubbing his back.

They slept together bundled in pajamas and under sheets and Merlin fell asleep and Harry stayed awake almost all night, to make sure he didn't have a nightmare, didn't disturb the rest that Merlin sorely needed.

*******************************

New Merlin had disco on.

Of all the memories that could have returned to Harry, that disco was one was just appalling. "You wanted to see me?" Harry asked when New Merlin did a rather impressive spin.

"Yup. You are a lying liar of lyington," New Merlin said cheerfully. "And I'm calling you on it."

"I don't know what you mean."

"You remember more than you say." New Merlin moved his hands in an odd fashion and then turned the music off. "Not saying you remember a lot. But you remember more than you say. And you are hurting my boss. So trying to decide if I hurt you too."

"You are more clever than the plaid suit suggests."

"Hey you shouldn't knock plaid or I'll show you some footage," New Merlin warned. "Talk to me, Head Case Harry."

"That is a dreadful nickname." But Harry smiled at it. He appreciated the bluntness. "It isn't much. Little things, light what the winter sun looks like against his profile. How to perform a choke hold. Old telephone numbers. All his. Little things that never really equal a whole."

New Merlin looked at him. "Hoarding them until you have more pieces?"

Harry shook his head.

"Worried that if you tell them you have little bits, they'll keep waiting for the big bits to come back too?" Harry nodded. "And you want them, you want Arthur, to deal with you on who you are now terms."

"Yes," Harry agreed. "I don't. I won't remember our old love, beyond these flashes, like the glimpses of a show on a channel you don't get. But I look at him, and know I could fall for him all over again. If he were willing to try. If he let go."

"You could tell that to him," New Merlin suggested.

"And break his heart?"

"Harry, it's been breaking over you since the day you were shot. Not much more left to break, unless you flat out walk away," New Merlin said.

"I don't...so much makes little sense, even after months. I am useless, a burden, and people talk to me like I'm a child. But I don't want to walk away."

"Harry, I get that you don't want to pick up a gun again, but you know what is great? Punching things. Punching things is great." New Merlin scratched his neck and took off his glasses. "Bet you'll want to punch something when you know this was totally a trap and Arthur has heard every word that you said?"

Harry didn't think, just shot out his arm and punched New Merlin. "You are right, that felt good."

New Merlin shook his head. "Glad to help."

"You planned this with Gavin?" 

"Nope, he didn't know what was going on until the feed went live on his glasses. Everyone was hurting and circling and it was all stupid. So I fixed it. Now I need a bag of peas against my jaw." New Merlin left his office, whistling.

"He is a very strange man," Harry said. "How do the agents cope with him?"

"He is a contrast to my tenure, and I think most enjoy the contrast," Merlin was a little out of breath. "He will of course be censured for doing that to you. It was cruel and unnecessary."

"Maybe cruel, but not unnecessary." Harry looked at Merlin. "I remember you in jerseys. And yelling."

"Arsenal break my heart every year," Merlin replied. He moved into the room. "Harry..."

"I'm sorry I don't remembering loving you, not all the way. God I want to remember. I want you to stop hurting. I want me to stop hurting. I want -" Harry was cut off when Merlin came over and kissed him. He sank into it. "Oh I remember that," he said when Merlin pulled away.

"I don't care if you do or don't," Merlin said. "I see you and I remember us. I can't stop that. I wouldn't give up my memories unless well..." He smiled a bit. "But Harry, we were given a second chance. Time to build new memories. They could be such good memories." He leaned his forehead against Harry's. "We fell into bed and eventually into like and love. What do you say to this time we change that order a bit?"

"I think that would be lovely," Harry said and closed his eyes. "In movies, love can be so strong to overcome this sort of thing. Your kiss should have brought it all back."

"Well, we'll just have to keep kissing, no matter the results, because kissing is fucking spectacular."

Harry kissed Merlin's jaw, it was a sentiment he could well agree with.

*************************************

"Merlin! Save me!" Harry began screaming and thrashing and begging for help. The dream cut off quickly though when he felt the warm length of a body against him and Merlin's voice right in his ear.

"I'm here, Harry. I will always save you. I'm right here," Merlin repeated over and over and sang a few bars. Not of Harry's favourites, but his. They had learned Harry was more soothed by those. Harry eventually softened and sank into Merlin, the tension of the nightmare leaving his body.

The night terrors and been less over the last six months as they began to date and Merlin stayed in his bed every night. They picked a new Kingsman house and decorated from the ground up. Harry had a service dog and a job at a used book shop. Merlin ruled the Kingsman well.

"We need sleep, Eggsy gets married tomorrow," Harry said. "I'm sorry I woke you."

"I never mind," Merlin promised. "Do you need help falling back asleep?" His body was long against Harry's, naked as he was.

Harry rolled over in his hold. "The greatest thing we ever discovered was that sex is best for post night terror adrenaline." He kissed Merlin and pulled the man on top of him. 

"We'll look haggard for the photos tomorrow," Merlin warned. 

"That's what make up is for," Harry replied. "Gavin, don't let go."

"I will never let go," Merlin promised and slid his hands along Harry's body.

Harry smiled at him. "I won't either," he promised as well.

There were no more nightmares that night.

And the next day, Harry was given all new memories of Merlin in a kilt. 

They were very very good memories to build.


End file.
